I started chain smoking on my front stoop again. I am in a group chat called “hot gay summer”, where all we do is send each other events that we will inevitably go to with the goal of making out with a stranger then going home without them. The other day, my roommate and I went to a fancy bakery in the Upper East Side and bought cake, and ate it in the park for no reason. It’s a hot, steamy, hedonistic summer - but I think it has been a long time coming. They will tell us that none of this makes us better people, but it does make us feel good.
It seems like we are coming out of a slumber, and in that slumber we just dreamt of alo yoga sets and $150 French skin care - and maybe we still are half asleep - but when it comes to going out and feeling good, well there is this notion that it needs to be the best of the best - every single weekend. The pandemic gave us time to rest and focus on ourselves, a fuzzy sock indoctrinated fever dream that feels like it was both two weeks and 10 years ago. But, as the world returned to normal, the early 2020s were marked by Pilates princesses, Glossier makeup and the corporate girlies that went back to the office in their Paloma Wool dresses. But now we are here.
We want sex, drugs, and rock and roll - or in this case Charlie XCX’s brat album and poppers. We want to live on the edge and make poor decisions, but those decisions feel good so how can they be bad? We had the cultural moment of Saltburn hitting theaters - and that to me, was the start of our hot hedonistic summer, brewing in the cold months of fall beforehand. It was freakish, drug induced, and villainous at times - but sexy and aspirational at the same time. There was something about how one could watch a family unravel in the most spectacular fashion that really set us up for a hedonism summer, along with bras hanging from chandeliers that really made us want to fuck. But unlike 2006, the year that Saltburn is set, we want to be seen fucking - that is, we want to be seen embodying the pulpy, almost campy, obscene with our interactions online and then transfer them into real life actions - it is more about the displaying that one is a hedonist, than the actual hedonist actions in some spaces (especially our digital online spheres).
The last time that was marked with hedonistic tendencies was the now claimed Indie Sleeze craze, lasting a few short years from 2007 - 2012. Marked by American Apperal tights, animal head masks, and Effy style eyeliner, pictures taken on crappy Nikon Cool-Pics cameras get reposted on those It-Girls instagram stories show that you just needed to be there. And it lines up. We are getting out of the Y2K craze that has been dominating our trends for a while, slowly getting into 2010’s fashion again as we approach 2025. And just like 2008, our economy sucks - it feels expensive to breathe. We want to consume (shoutout the Lipstick effect), and an easy way to do so is to give into our vices - if its fucking, or smoking, or eating, or partying - it feels warranted. It feels like we have deserved it.
But as we sit in our filth, there is a certain idea about when being a hedonist is okay or not okay. This is in defense of the hedonistic tendencies we are engaging in. Being a hedonist does not make us less than, but rather, more than. We are engaging with ourselves, each other, and our community when we go out and consume. When I smoke on my stoop, I meet my neighbors. When I go out to the lesbian bars to dance, I find myself with the community I am apart of grow in numbers through movement. When I eat cake at the “wrong” time, I actively am challenging my internal thoughts of food